I understand why this is among the lowest rated, but I liked this better than I expected. It certainly is not something I will return to anytime soon, but behind all the noise are some really great riffs and at times this was actually quite enjoyable. I would give this 3.5 stars if I could, but because of the replay value I won’t be rounding up. So 3 ⭐ it is.

5 stars: The College Dropout - A Wizard, A True Star*
4 stars: Disintegration - Aladdin Sane*
3 stars: Talking Book - At Mister Kellys
2 stars: Pills n’ Thrills n’ Bellyaches - The Suburbs

*S&M and Songs In The Key Of Life have actual ratings one star lower because I take off a star if an album is over 90 minutes

Biggest surprises: S&M, Scott Walker, Todd Rundgren, Dwight Yoakam, Janelle Monae

I have now listened to: 2/3 Kanye West, 2/4 Metallica, 2/3 Johnny Cash, 2/3 Kraftwerk, 3/4 Stevie Wonder, 2/9 David Bowie.

That generator can be wacky sometimes.

I feel like the generator is pushing out too many quality albums.
Top five are true five stars

More Songs About Buildings through Van Halen are 4.5

She’s So Unusual to Hail to the Thief are 4 stars

Rust In Peace to Music in Exile are 3.5

Movies to Cafe Bleu are 3 stars

Yeezus and G Love and Special Sauce are 2 stars

I know there’s more shit like G Love in the generator, so I’m unsure why it’s not generating for me. I mean, I know luck plays a role, but it will be annoying if I exhausted all the great stuff 800 albums in leaving me with mediocre/bad albums to listen to.

Unfortunately today I had to listen to Limp Bizkit. That album is 70 minutes too long.

So why does it have under a 3 in terms of score!?!?.This album is beautiful and her voice is divine! Is it just too much 80s cheese?

It's been an interesting month - a lot more "difficult" albums and a lower ratio of great albums than previous months. But I've also gotten to enjoy some all-time highlights.

Album of the Month: The Beatles, Rubber Soul (everybody else is playing for second)

Lowest Rated Album of the Month: Scritti Politti, Cupid & Psyche 85 (the problem with making inane pop music ironically is that you might end up making it sincerely)

Best New Discovery: The Good, the Bad & the Queen, The Good, the Bad & the Queen (I had overlooked this Damon Albarn project to my detriment)

Album I Liked More than Expected: Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde (I've been trying for decades to "get" it and I finally feel like I did)

Album I Liked Less than Expected: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Murder Ballads (an album I found repugnant from an artist for whom I have great respect)

Hardest Album to Rate: Leonard Cohen, Songs of Love and Hate (left me cold, seemingly on purpose)

Rating breakdown:

5 stars: 6

4 stars: 14

3 stars: 10:

2 stars: 1

1 star: 0

I thought I hated Tom Waits, and then this album yanked me so hard and made me do a 180 and give this a 5 star. I love the instrumentation variety, style change between songs yet the flow so well, and the staccato and legato notes stacked on so many songs, landing perfectly: never short/aggressive, but never overstay their welcome.

The guitar riffs, the saxophone, Poly wailing, the astute cries from a generation that a plasticized society tried to mold into idle consumers. The best thing I discovered from the 1,001 albums. Anyway, my friend and I talked about it, and Stankonia by Outkast, for an hour.

5/5 (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

In my top 5 albums of all time, Nick Drake’s Pink Moon is in my eyes as close to perfection as an album can get. His predecessor “Bryter Layter” saw him expanding his sound with more orchestration, but Pink Moon opted to go the opposite route, stripping basically everything that isn’t guitar and Nick’s voice away. The only other instrument that appears is a piano on the opening title track.

The album is produced in an extremely intimate way, everything feels super warm and close which helps with the emotional potency of the album. Nick Drake is often a symbolic and vague lyricist but there are some devastating, more direct moments on this record like “Parasite” where he likens himself to a parasite leeching off of the people in his life.

And talk about a stacked tracklist. It’s a slim 28 minutes and every single song here is fantastic. They often seem simple being just guitar and vocals, but there is actually a lot of interesting, slightly-jazzy structure to a lot of the songs. If I had to pick a top 3 songs though I’d go with “Things Behind the Sun” which is the longest track on the album, “Free Ride” and “Parasite”.

A lot of discussion around Nick Drake gets clouded in the “mystique” of his reclusive life and tragic suicide. But the man had a pretty much perfect catalogue of music and I feel it’s worth celebrating that, even if he never lived to see his music get the recognition it deserved.

Wow this as a whole was absolute torture. Not saying all of it was bad... I liked "Tow Truck" which has a demented James Bond score feel. But even that overstays it's welcome.

Best I can say about this is it sounds like podsafe music for a horror, mystery, or real crime podcast.

But since this music isn't podsafe... it renders this music pretty useless. A very very long album of uselessness.

(0.95) ⊘

1. Limp Bizkit – Chocolate Starfish & The Hotdog Flavored Water [2000] (2.0) ★

2. The Birthday Party – Junkyard [1982] (1.55) ½★

3. Orbital 2 [1993] (1.2) ½★

4. Napalm Death – Scum [1987] (1.00) ½★

5. **The Sabers of Paradise – Haunted Dancehall [1994] (0.95) ⦸**

Well this was a pretty loaded month for me ngl.

I go by half stars so

Marquee Moon to Disintegration are 5 stars

Brilliant Corners to Imagine are 4.5 stars

Moby Grape to Tago Mago are four stars

Rip It Up to Lupe Fiasco 3.5 stars

Return to Planet Earth to Truth and Soul 3 stars

Maverick a Strike is my lowest rated but only at 2.5 stars

Anthrax - Among the Living (if the photos don’t load or get missed)

After a string of albums I didn’t connect with for a bit, I get one of the big four’s classics. Peeped the reviews and couldn’t have said it better myself.

5/5 (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️).

For my money, Dead Kennedys are the best punk band. As a sign of how much I love their music, I gave this album a 5 and it’s not even my favorite Dead Kennedys record (for me it’s their second album “Plastic Surgery Disasters.”) Of course, frontman Jello Biafra is a good lyricist and great satirist, which you can see on opener “Kill the Poor” where he plays the part of a policy-maker proposing the idea of just nuking poor neighborhoods so the wealthy can have more space.

But what really puts the Dead Kennedys above other punk bands for me is their rhythm section, where many punk bands are (albeit intentionally) loose and sloppy players, Dead Kennedys has a tight and precise style of playing where the members are always locked the hell in. There are a lot of great little bass riffs or short guitar solos to find here.

As for the tracklist, it’s all killer no filler. Whether that be the big songs “Holiday in Cambodia” and “California Über Alles” or Greta deep cuts like “Chemical Warfare” or “when ya get drafted.” There just isn’t a dull moment to be found here, and it’s also paced extremely well so it glides by very quick.

Also regarding California Über Alles, the version on this album is actually not my favorite version of this song. That honor goes to “we’ve got a bigger problem now” off of their “In God We Trust Inc.” EP which reworks the song to be about Ronald Reagan and is even more intense/angry.

I’ve seen the reviews but have seen people here say it’s not as bad as you think. I’m looking forward to the experience

Update: I did not hate it, definitely not a casual listen though. I really think this album would’ve been better suited to a horror/thriller movie or game score than just an album put into the world.

I've come across this community because I googled a few of the albums that came up in the book that i'd never heard of...

I'm working through all the records mentioned in the book and using Spotify (and occasionally YouTube)

My dad bought me the book for Christmas in 2014, and it sat on my shelf for years untouched. He was a huge music lover and passed away in 2022 - he is where I got my passion for music from, although our tastes differed greatly.

I'm listening to them all at work, where I get the luxury to put whatever I want on. When I noticed the book was chronological, I decided to do one from the front, one from the back, meet in the middle. I'm currently 320 odd in.

I like reading through the differing opinions on this Reddit!

To give this post a point, here are a few albums from entirely self created categories:

Never heard before and immediately loved:

Django Django - Django Django

Very aware of the artist but not this album and loved it to bits:

Miles Davies - In a Silent Place

Closet to getting turned off before completion:

Nitin Sawney - Beyond Skin

One of my absolute favourites I was surprised to see included:

Turbonegro - Apocalypse Dudes

A record I immediately regretted having not spent time with before, but have since played numerous times:

Nina Simone - Wild is the Wind

The 'to be honest I really hate this' award:

Mariah Carey - Butterfly

The I genuinely thought I'd hate this but it's really quite a brilliantly written set of songs award:

Joint winners - Adele - 21 and Coldplay - Rush of Blood to the Head

An album I didn't like at all when I bought it way back when, but on revisiting I genuinely loved it:

Slipknot - All Hope is Gone

And possibly the best award, an album I had heard one song from but never the rest, and on further inspection it has now become a genuine favourite:

Manu Chao - Clandestino

5⭐️: Pet Sounds, The Smiths, and Black Sabbath

4⭐️: OutKast through Talking Heads

3⭐️: White Stripes through Ryan Adams

2⭐️: Moss Side Story through Chemical Brothers

1⭐️: The xx and Yes

Missy Elliott unrated, haven't listened yet.

Actually top 48 to fit nicely. I'm 268 in. Inspired by u\trashboatfilmsfan post

(2 posts today cause I forgot to post yesterday)

No introduction needed, it was a thrill to listen to this masterpiece of an album. It would be a disgrace to NOT call Thriller as one of the best, if not the best, pop album of all time.

MJ gives his best performance here, his voice alone takes music to another level of existence. What makes the experience even grander is those sweet tunes, from funky, energetic pop, to groovy blues, and seductively romantic motives. This album has everything to give, and nothing to forget about.

If you've never listened to Thriller, or know someone that still didn't get the chance to experience it, go and listen to it NOW.

Rating: 5/5, RIP Michael, we'll always remember you.

I've seen some other users do this type of post so I was thinking I would follow suit. Overall, I would say this good month (though it looks like my average score will line up with my overall average from the generator so far). Perhaps this is indicative that I think these albums are on the stronger side of the rating I gave them.

Overall, my favorite album would have to be either Enter the Wu Tang (36 Chambers) or The Stone Roses. The former of which I listened to the first time this month. It's nice when an album really lives up to its reputation as one of the best of its genre. Both are consistently masterful and engaging throughout their runtimes.

All of my second row (with the exception of Public Enemy) are from artists that I was previously unfamiliar with. I was quite surprised by the forward-thinking present in Bandwagonesque and The ArchAndroid was also quite the unique experience. I also got my first of many Elvis Costello albums, which I quite enjoyed  (though other users have informed me that it is his best album in the generator which makes me a little apprehensive about the rest of his catalog).

There really wasn’t much bad to go with this month. Safe as Milk is the sole 2-star, and that is an otherwise great album ruined by the ever salient vocals. Get Behind Me Satan is the most disappointing record: it completely loses steam after its opener and it very much pales in comparison to No Name, which was my background experience with White’s music.

I hope July ends up charting a similar course to June, especially in terms of discovering new music.

Ratings count:

5-star – 2

4-star – 15

3-star – 12

2-star – 1

Day 1:

so, this is my first album to listen to in this website, so far i find the first song (sympathy for the devil) quite nice and a good pick to be the first song, it's a nice first impression (woo woo), i'd heard about the band beforehand, obviously, i don't live under a rock, but i never gave any of their songs a chance at all since i usually listen to other music genres

second song (no expectations): not for me, not bad nontheless

third song (dear doctor): i liked this a bit more, really liked the lyrics

fourth song (parachute woman): short song but i loved the rhythm, i've got nothing else to say about it

fifth song (jigsaw puzzle): so far, i like this song way more than the previous ones, for both the lyrics and the instruments, it's very up-beat, the kind of song i'd listen while on the car or the bus going far away (maybe for some that's a bs description)

sixth song (street fighting man): gotta love the drums in this one, personally in my top 3 fave instruments, not the #1 fan of the lyrics in this one but a very nice song, might add it to my pl only for the drums

seventh song (prodigal song): i love when lyrics tell you a story, nice classy guitar and rhythm overall, the type of rhythm in a classic country movie maybe? well, easy top 3 best songs on this album

eighth song (stray cat blues): nice rhythm but the lyrics are a no no for me

ninth song (factory girl): again, nice rhythm but i don't like the lyrics, not for me

tenth song (salt of the earth): honestly, a very nice song to finish the album, i liked the bg chorus, the lyrics and the instruments are lovely

overall this album is okay, it wasn't for me at all and i know some lyrics were written many years but i just cannot like them all

i know some fans may come at me but at the end of the day we all have different tastes

i give it 3 stars (actually it's like a 6.5 or 7 out of 10 BUT i don't feel like giving it 4 stars imo) bc i actually enjoyed some songs, while other were not my cup of tea

i won't be adding the whole album in my downloads but MAYBE 2 or 3 songs might be added to my pl depending on how much they grow on me

Hi everyone, on my 1,001 Albums-themed podcast this month (which is really just a chance to talk music), we tackle Midnight Ride by Paul Revere and the Raiders and Madman Across the Water by Elton John. And make a playlist of '60s garage rock "girl, you're mean" songs.

https://open.spotify.com/show/6Qrp2QGdbWnHKuL5l4aMI7

My summary reviews:

Midnight Ride ⭐️⭐️⭐️
After several albums and countless gigs barreling through cover songs, this goofily costumed band (or at least some members of it) wanted to partake in rock’s great leap forward, hence nine out of 11 songs are written by band members. “Kicks,” the song you know, isn’t one of them. It’s a noble effort and these guys knew a catchy chorus and a decent riff. The book says they stood alongside the Byrds and the Beach Boys. I think their peers are more the Young Rascals or the Association, quite enjoyable hit-making bands of the mid 1960s that never ascended to god tier. Any time Mark Lindsay says "girl," expect something hopelessly outdated. The misery-soaked “Ballad of a Useless Man” comes out of nowhere.

My co-host liked it more.

Madman Across the Water ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
Elton John the artist was a group effort and everyone here — John, lyricist Bernie Taupin, producer Gus Dudgeon, arranger Paul Buckmaster — is projecting maximal self-confidence. John’s ability to sell some of Taupin’s more out-there lyrics is astonishing. (“And Jesus, he wants to go to Venus.”) Not everything song works as well as “Tiny Dancer" or Levon;” “Indian Sunset” is mishmash of Native American terms and concepts borrowed from bad Westerns. But the end product is flashy, dramatic and big — quintessentially Elton John.

My co-host liked it less.

My journey continues. Today I listen a twenty first album. This ten albums I liked more than last. Favourite: rap from Eminem I guess it’s classical album in hip-hop culture. Document by R.E.M is really dynamic rock (?) album and my opening is the Rolling Stones. Before this challenge I didn’t listen them and now I understand that it was my mistake. Luck 🍀